Dominic Cummings claims ministers backed herd immunity against Covid

[Northerner]

Dominic Cummings has launched an extraordinary new attempt to destroy the government’s credibility over Covid-19, claiming that ministers had backed a policy of “herd immunity” then lied about having done so.

In an astonishing series of tweets on Saturday just days before he is due to appear before a Commons inquiry, the prime minister’s former adviser in effect accused the health secretary, Matt Hancock, of lying about the “herd immunity” plan and talking “bullshit” when he denied it to the media.

Cummings also claimed that if “competent” people had been in charge of Covid strategy in its early stages, then it may have been possible to avoid the first lockdown, and certainly the second and third would not have been needed.

In one tweet Cummings, who was accused in various media reports early in the pandemic of himself backing the idea of herd immunity – a policy allowing people to catch Covid in order to boost the number with antibodies – said: “Media generally abysmal on covid but even I’ve been surprised by 1 thing: how many hacks have parroted Hancock’s line that ‘herd immunity wasn’t the plan’ when ‘herd immunity by Sep’ was *literally the official plan in all docs/graphs/meetings* until it was ditched”.

Dominic Cummings claims ministers backed herd immunity against Covid

PM’s ex-adviser says if ‘competent’ people had been in charge at least two lockdowns could have been avoided

www.theguardian.com

" the prime minister had announced a public inquiry to learn any lessons that needed to be learned" - yeah, right, an inquiry that won't be reporting until after the next election 😡

 

[Docb]

The problem with this sort of stuff is that Cummings' track record for openness, honesty and accurate reporting is just about on a par with that of government ministers.

It would be quite funny, one set of PR merchants trying to out PR another set of PR merchants, if it were not quite so serious.

 

[pm133]

None of this matters right now in the scheme of things.
Governments around the world were faced with an unprecedented pandemic which no other government in living memory has had to deal with.
There was no script.

All of them had to make it up as they went along. From right wing governments through to left wing governments, not one of them had the right answer to this. Australia and New Zealand might THINK they have the answer but the reality is that they are only able to keep it at bay because they've shut out the outside world and look set to remain that way permanently unless they can convince their complacent, inward-looking populations to get vaccinated in sufficient numbers.

People like Cummings are only interested in themselves. It might make interesting reading for a few people but this is just trashy, gossipy tripe in the face of a reality of 140,000 people dead in the UK alone.

There's not a single person out there who would have handled this pandemic any better. I'm glad it wasn't me who had to make decisions about herd immunity.

The big lesson to be taken from the pandemic isn't about what Boris and Hancock did or didn't do. It's much simpler than that and is one word.

OBESITY.

It seems to be right at the root of everything our country does wrong in terms of the health of the population. While everyone is blaming Boris and young people for wanting to enjoy their lives in parks and on beaches, nobody seems to be looking at themselves. There's almost no sense of personal responsibility.
If we had no obesity, I am confident we'd have seen far fewer deaths from covid. Additionally, we'd be seeing far fewer deaths of a vast range of other conditions. It seems we simply don't care enough.

This must be the national wake up call for the UK to finally do something about this ruinous culture. Heavily tax takeaway food to the hilt (just like with cigarettes), make food manufacturers subject to almost pharma-standard food tests to ensure their food passes a much higher minimum health criteria on things like additives, fat, sugar, etc., impose limits on numbers of takeaways in a local area, run free local evening campaigns and classes showing people how to cook properly and cheaply using fresh food etc. Watching Jamie Oliver on TV isn't enough. It requires active participation which will also have social interaction benefits.

If we want the best chance of minimising the impact of the next pandemic, we must solve the obesity crisis in the UK as the absolute top priority in my opinion. No excuses.

 

[pm133]

Incicdentally, I am no fan of the Tories but if I was in charge, I would have been persuaded by the herd immunity argument.

I would not have emptied old people into care homes though.

Only once we were reaching capacity in the NHS would I have locked down although I might have been persuaded to follow other countries lead on that issue.

From that side of the pandemic, there was no guarantee of any vaccine and no obvious way of locking down without killing the economy - perhaps permanently. Lockdown didn't look a viable solution either because you lockdown, re-open and it all starts again. Herd immunity absolutely looked a reasonable bet. Not the only one. But it did look reasonable.
Now that we have the vaccine, there is no alternative to re-opening fully and getting in with normal life. There's no end game otherwise, unless someone else has a better idea.

 

[pm133]

Rant over. Phew I feel better for that. 🙂

 

[Eddy Edson]

Australia and New Zealand might THINK they have the answer but the reality is that they are only able to keep it at bay because they've shut out the outside world and look set to remain that way permanently unless they can convince their complacent, inward-looking populations to get vaccinated in sufficient numbers.

We antipodeans have come through the pandemic with no excess mortality (in fact, negative excess mortality), mostly no "lock downs" or other restrictions for most of the time, strong economies and clear "exit strategies" with vaccination. What more could you ask for?

And I've heard nothing to suggest that anybody has any good argument for why the UK in particular couldn't have done the same. I don't think there was ever any consideration given to the strategy - just brush offs without any analysis: "we need to import food", "it would kill the economy" etc etc. Childish, from where I sit.

 

[pm133]

We antipodeans have come through the pandemic with no excess mortality (in fact, negative excess mortality), mostly no "lock downs" or other restrictions for most of the time, strong economies and clear "exit strategies" with vaccination. What more could you ask for?

And I've heard nothing to suggest that anybody has any good argument for why the UK in particular couldn't have done the same. I don't think there was ever any consideration given to the strategy - just brush offs without any analysis: "we need to import food", "it would kill the economy" etc etc. Childish, from where I sit.

You have not come through the pandemic at all. None of us have yet.
You have built up no natural immunity to this and have appalling levels of vaccination take-up.

 

[Eddy Edson]

You have not come through the pandemic at all. None of us have yet.
You have built up no natural immunity to this and have appalling levels of vaccination take-up.

"Appalling take-up" is journalist beat up, to a large extent. We started much later than you, on purpose, and we have had more supply constraints, but vax rates are accelerating.

There certainly hasn't been the same urgency as in places which failed to implement good NPI strategies. And aspects of the fed govt's execution has been crappy. But we'll get there.

 

[Amity Island]

There was no script.

All of them had to make it up as they went along. From right wing governments through to left wing governments, not one of them had the right answer to this.

Pm133,

Shortly before the worldwide coronavirus outbreak in 2019, event 201 took place, involving worldwide governments, scientists and doctors.

"Event 201 simulates an outbreak of a novel zoonotic coronavirus transmitted from bats to pigs to people that eventually becomes efficiently transmissible from person to person, leading to a severe pandemic. The pathogen and the disease it causes are modeled largely on SARS, but it is more transmissible in the community setting by people with mild symptoms."

"15 global business, government, and public health leaders were players in the simulation exercise that highlighted unresolved real-world policy and economic issues that could be solved with sufficient political will, financial investment, and attention now and in the future."

"Experts agree that it is only a matter of time before one of these epidemics becomes global—a pandemic with potentially catastrophic consequences.."

Event 201 | Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security

The Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security in partnership with the World Economic Forum and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation hosted Event 201, a high-level pandemic exercise on October 18, 2019, in New York, NY.

www.centerforhealthsecurity.org

Event 201 | Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security

The Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security in partnership with the World Economic Forum and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation hosted Event 201, a high-level pandemic exercise on October 18, 2019, in New York, NY.

www.centerforhealthsecurity.org

 

[pm133]

"Appalling take-up" is journalist beat up, to a large extent. We started much later than you, on purpose, and we have had more supply constraints, but vax rates are accelerating.

I'm not sure why a country would deliberately delay vaccinating their vulnerable. That is a very odd thing to do.

It's not just journalism by the way.
It's your own medical experts saying it. The Chief Health Officer for Victoria has been directly quoted as saying "Low vaccination coverage is the greatest risk to health in Australia today."

That's from his own Twitter feed:

https://twitter.com/x/status/1394775239620382723

He's not alone in this viewpoint.

Glad to hear your vaccinations are picking up. In Scotland, ours seems to have slowed down considerably but most people now have had their 1st injection and a significant have had 2. Virtually all of our vulnerable groups are now fully vaccinated.

Having said all of this, I will admit to being relieved that I had the luxury of waiting to see how safe vaccines were before getting my 1st jab so I undrstand a bit of vaccine hesitancy but they have clearly been shown to be a lot safer than not having one and catching covid so I hope uptake improves across the world.

 

[pm133]

Pm133,

Shortly before the worldwide coronavirus outbreak in 2019, event 201 took place, involving worldwide governments, scientists and doctors.

"Event 201 simulates an outbreak of a novel zoonotic coronavirus transmitted from bats to pigs to people that eventually becomes efficiently transmissible from person to person, leading to a severe pandemic. The pathogen and the disease it causes are modeled largely on SARS, but it is more transmissible in the community setting by people with mild symptoms."

"15 global business, government, and public health leaders were players in the simulation exercise that highlighted unresolved real-world policy and economic issues that could be solved with sufficient political will, financial investment, and attention now and in the future."

"Experts agree that it is only a matter of time before one of these epidemics becomes global—a pandemic with potentially catastrophic consequences.."

Event 201 | Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security

The Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security in partnership with the World Economic Forum and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation hosted Event 201, a high-level pandemic exercise on October 18, 2019, in New York, NY.

www.centerforhealthsecurity.org

Event 201 | Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security

The Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security in partnership with the World Economic Forum and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation hosted Event 201, a high-level pandemic exercise on October 18, 2019, in New York, NY.

www.centerforhealthsecurity.org

Don't get me wrong.
I'm not defending anyone's actions here.
I just don't want to fall into the lazy habit of automatically blaming them either.
We could have helped ourselves individually by not becoming one of the most obese nations on earth. That is an appalling judgment on us all individually and at government level. There's just no soft soaping that.
When it happened to me, Boris Johnson wasn't in my house shovelling pizza into my mouth because I couldn't be bothered spending 15 minutes cooking fresh chicken in a sauce with some pasta. That was on me. Pure and simple. And it's a story you'll hear up and down the country in every single street if people are being genuinely honest. What Boris COULD have done, and could still do, is tax the backside off things like takeaway pizza. If each pizza cost £25 with a law against Buy One Get One Free, that would have been a nice incentive to help me stop (which I have now).

We have eaten ourselves to a health disaster as a nation. Unfortunately we're still at the point where far too many people either won't even acknowledge the problem or won't accept that they are to blame. Without that basic acceptance of the problem, it's hard to see how a solution can be achieved.

 

[Bruce Stephens]

We have eaten ourselves to a health disaster as a nation.

When we're talking about such a large proportion of the population, surely talking about it as a problem of personal choices isn't that plausible? Surely it's more likely that our environment has changed (which is the product of lots of individual choices, sure, but it's not one that individuals have all that much power over)?

 

[Amity Island]

Don't get me wrong.
I'm not defending anyone's actions here.
I just don't want to fall into the lazy habit of automatically blaming them either.
We could have helped ourselves individually by not becoming one of the most obese nations on earth. That is an appalling judgment on us all individually and at government level. There's just no soft soaping that.
When it happened to me, Boris Johnson wasn't in my house shovelling pizza into my mouth because I couldn't be bothered spending 15 minutes cooking fresh chicken in a sauce with some pasta. That was on me. Pure and simple. And it's a story you'll hear up and down the country in every single street if people are being genuinely honest. What Boris COULD have done, and could still do, is tax the backside off things like takeaway pizza. If each pizza cost £25 with a law against Buy One Get One Free, that would have been a nice incentive to help me stop (which I have now).

We have eaten ourselves to a health disaster as a nation. Unfortunately we're still at the point where far too many people either won't even acknowledge the problem or won't accept that they are to blame. Without that basic acceptance of the problem, it's hard to see how a solution can be achieved.

Hi Pm133,

I'm not criticising your post, so need to explain yourself. I like much of what you say and look forward to your posts. I was adding some info to your point about government not being prepared for the pandemic. I was just giving some info on event 201 which was carried out to prepare the world for the pandemic after the exercise took place.

 

[Eddy Edson]

I'm not sure why a country would deliberately delay vaccinating their vulnerable. That is a very odd thing to do.

So the decision in Oz, NZ, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan etc was to go through the standard approval process, rather than the emergency use approval used in the UK, US, basically all the parts of the world which failed to deal adequately with the virus. This was supposed to give people greater confidence & promote uptake. And bureaucratically, there was in fact no local "emergency".

It was dumb, IMO.

 

[nonethewiser]

From the man who lied thru his teeth on live tv, so wouldnt believe word man says.

 

[pm133]

When we're talking about such a large proportion of the population, surely talking about it as a problem of personal choices isn't that plausible? Surely it's more likely that our environment has changed (which is the product of lots of individual choices, sure, but it's not one that individuals have all that much power over)?

I do see where you are coming from here but I am also a very strong advocate of personal responsibility trumping all of it.
It's a combination of things and as I've said on other related threads, obesity is not as simple as willpower or anything like that.

None of this is about apportioning blame though. It's about understanding the source of the problem well enough to affect change in your own life. Blaming Boris for my waistline isn't going to cut the mustard. But recognising my own part in this absolutely is a first step. I can control that. I can make changes there and adopt a great mindset whilst doing so, providing I don't beat myself up by indulging in a useless game of "blaming" myself or anyone else.

When I take a step back, I see a clear picture developing on all of this so I'll share my thoughts which may or may not be accurate. Bear with me while I go through this. It might sound like an anti-Capitalist rant but that's actually not where my political beliefs stem from.

Here's my theory.
In the 70s and 80s, I don't recall any obesity crisis. Sure plenty of people were overweight but nowhere near the 8 out of 10 that I am seeing every time I go out and nowhere near the same size of being overweight either.

The roots of it I think started in the 80s (but maybe the seeds were sown post-WW2 - older posters will have a better idea) when our entire culture seemed to shift rapidly and decisively towards "greed is good" consumerism when we seemed to want to emulate everything American as a way out of crushing poverty. We replaced one problem (poverty) with another (excessive materialism). To feed that market, companies downsized and outsourced everything in pursuit of the cheap. Quality was sacrificed for profit. Jobs for life disappeared, insecurity replaced security. If the price wasn't right, we ditched it. If it didn't make a profit, we sneered at it. We slashed and devalued spending on anything which didn't come with a pound sign - art, culture, music (the things which actually make life worth living). Even blue sky science and research was phased out leaving us incapable of innovating our way out of trouble. We turned kids playgrounds into housing estates. We allowed people to own more than one house so that they could turn a profit (along with most politicians who indulged in this). That way we allowed a scarce resource (housing) to become artificially scarcer, pushing up house prices. That new generation of "property developers" were then able to increase rents because people who would normally have bought were now renting, increasing demand. A double bubble.

Somewhere along the line we lost our way and our culture disappeared with it. We sold our culture and our collective souls for cheap material stuff we don't really need and it's become clear that there's been a horrible price to pay. Depression and unhappiness have never been higher. When buying yet another new kitchen or yet another new iPhone doesn't fill the void created by unhappiness and depression, people turn to food. Obsessively. But not vegetables. Not fresh meat. We go to cake. Chocolate. Takeaways. Then the weight piles on and we get more miserable. So we comfort eat more and more. Processed food by the bucket. We even have one takeaway joint selling food in actual buckets - KFC. Modern society is now plagued by allergies (presumably from a lifetime of piling processed rubbish through our colons), depression, Type 2 diabetes, heart disease and countless preventable diseases which seem to have obesity as one of the largest risk factors.

So, in summary, capitalism is a potentially great tool for advancement but collectively and individually we have pissed it up against a wall and continue to do so. That has driven a wave of unhappiness which we've repeatedly filled with food and that has led to an obesity crisis in the UK. Interestingly, the country we aspired to be, the US, is unsurprisingly ahead of us in this regard. We should look there and glimpse our future. It's a horrifying thought. It truly is.

So that's my theory and I'm open to persuasion if someone can convince me I'm wrong. How you solve this? No idea.

ETA. Know how I overcame being overweight? After years of struggle I got "lucky" and developed Type 1 diabetes and shed 5 stone without trying. Since diagnosis I've put on 2 stone again (just the right weight now) and I intend to stay there if at all possible. I got lucky once. I suspect I will not get the chance again.

 

[pm133]

So the decision in Oz, NZ, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan etc was to go through the standard approval process, rather than the emergency use approval used in the UK, US, basically all the parts of the world which failed to deal adequately with the virus. This was supposed to give people greater confidence & promote uptake. And bureaucratically, there was in fact no local "emergency".

Right OK, that explains the delay then.

And unfortunately, it seems to have bred complacency rather than confidence in vaccines and that's a real shame. Hopefully that will improve because the longer you guys stay unvaccinated, the longer the virus has a chance to mutate. The fear will be that once a variant breaks through (and it absolutely will) your borders, it might rip right through your country in a heartbeat because of the low number of vaccinated people.

We're just going to have to wait and see what happens.

 

[Robin]

An observation on obesity here,@pm133 . We went to Whitby last week, on the one warm sunny day there’s been recently. It was busy. The area round the harbour (near the car parks) was rammed with people sitting in cafes eating fish and chips, and most of them were overweight. We then walked up to the top of the cliff, where it was much less crowded and there were still people eating fish and chips, but in takeaway boxes that they’d bought down in the town, then walked up to the benches to eat. Most of these people were normal weight. So I have to conclude that exercise plays a part, and motivation plays a part in whether you take exercise or not. We fled the busy town because I hate crowded places and the smell of cheap frying oil, and I was motivated to walk up the steep hill to a quiet spot. Presumably for those whose main motivation was the pleasure of a plate of fish and chips, they missed out on the exercise.
When I was growing up, obesity was rare. But everyone used up more energy in their daily lives. Many people didn’t have cars, and walked or cycled to school or work, houses didn’t have central heating, I’m sure I burned up the odd few hundred calories just keeping warm. For the first few years away from home, I lugged my heavy washing to the laundrette down the road, and back. I carried my shopping to the bus stop and then to my house. People had to exercise because they didn’t have the choice. People didn’t buy snacks between meals because food was relatively expensive. Now they can choose whether to exercise, and some choose not to. Add to the mix that it has become the norm to eat on the go wherever you are, whereas I don’t remember anyone eating on buses or trains, and certainly not in the street when I was growing up in the 60s and 70s. I agree, portion sizes, the power of advertising for companies trying to maximise profit, more spending power for some consumers, and cheap junk food, have all played their part.
I have to add here, that I was one of the few overweight girls in my class at school, about 2 stones overweight, because I was unhappy and I comfort ate. I lost it when I left home and went to Uni. But what kept a lid on it for me, was that ordinary clothes shops only went up to a size 14 (which is the equivalelent of a 12 now, as sizes have got more generous) and I knew if I got any bigger my only option would be shop at Evans Outsizes, which was the only chain catering for larger sizes. Nowadays, people expect to find xxxl clothes as standard, and 2 stone overweight is accepted as the new normal, so no alarm bells ring.
Sorry, rant over, and I’ve gone way off topic!

 

[Bruce Stephens]

People didn’t buy snacks between meals because food was relatively expensive.

And snacks between meals weren't really a thing (with some exceptions, like afternoon tea).

 

[mikeyB]

When I was born wartime rationing was still in place, and didn’t end completely till a year later. The result of that in my early years, excess eating was almost socially unacceptable, and the shortage of sweets in my early years meant I didn’t develop an interest in sweet things. I certainly didn’t eat between meals. Didn’t have time, exploring the hills around and trying to dam up streams, and squeeze through a broken door in the long abandoned cinema, just see what was there, or go up to the cricket field to watch match practice. We were certainly hardly ever in.

I’ve only ever been slightly overweight, which kicked off at Uni with beer and Disque Bleu and a heroically bad diet, and lost weight later with ulcerative colitis. Not a recommended way to do it, mind.